


A Little Crazy Never Hurt Anybody

by Lucky_Guardian



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Adopted Children, Adoption, Aliens, Anxiety Attacks, Arguing, Bad Decisions, Betrayal, Blood, Character Death, Death, Deception, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Red/Black (Among Us), Lies, Male-Female Friendship, Murder, Murder Mystery, Outer Space, Parent-Child Relationship, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, The Skeld (Among Us)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26736178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky_Guardian/pseuds/Lucky_Guardian
Summary: Procedure told Yellow to call an emergency meeting. To get rid of the extra imposter before anything went wrong. No one in their right mind would do otherwise, to try treating this child like a human one.However… they were just a kid. Too small and too young to hurt anyone or even to be recognized by the computers as another imposter.No one in their right mind would attempt to take care of an alien child like this. Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind, maybe she hit her head that day. It would be crazy to try to care for this kid. Maybe she was a little crazy. A little crazy never hurt anybody, right?“...You wanna stay for me for awhile?” Yellow offered, sealing her own fate.Or, a crewmate adopts an imposter child after the imposter parent was ejected. Life on the Skeld only gets weirder from there, especially since there's still another imposter on board...
Relationships: Crewmate & Impostor (Among Us)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 583





	A Little Crazy Never Hurt Anybody

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops here I am on the bandwagon. My school friends convinced me to download Among Us last Saturday, I drew fanart for it on Sunday, and then spent over four hours writing this on Monday. I was sick Tuesday, but here I am to post this today. Hyperfixation propels me through time and space.

Working on the Skeld was not supposed to turn into a fucking murder mystery.

It wasn’t supposed to turn into a babysitting adventure either.

But here Yellow was; sometimes she wondered if she hit her head that day to lead her down where she went here.

She was just trying to do her dang tasks.

Electrical was known to be the most dangerous location. If you had a task there, it was either wires (one of the easiest) or downloads (one of the most annoying), and there was a vent right beside the panels for both, so an imposter could climb out and attack a busy crewmate at any minute. It was incredibly stressful, but the tasks needed to get done one way or another.

The Skeld had an imposter problem. Aliens would regularly manage to sneak onto the ship among crewmates, pretending to be one of them. The solution? Stress about it, try and gather evidence and support from crewmates, then vote to hopefully eject the imposter from the ship. Oh it was a ridiculous and horrible solution, usually devolving into crewmates yelling at each other and accidentally ejecting a fellow human, but it was all they had.

Maybe Yellow hadn’t hit her head that day, maybe she hit it the day she decided to come back to this godforsaken ship. This was her second round up in space here, and she had been lucky the first time to only have one imposter in the crew, who was quickly found out and voted out with minimal crewmate casualties. This time the computer detected two imposters among them, and it took the deaths of Lime and Brown to figure out that Black was one of the imposters and eject them.

One imposter remained. And Yellow was incredibly stressed out. Her bad habit of doing tasks without a buddy didn’t help matters either. She was well aware that traveling in groups of three was arguably the safest, but she could never bring herself to ask anyone to go do tasks with her, and usually wandered off on her own after meetings.

So, when she heard the vent creak beside her, her first thought was: Oh god, I’m so dead, the imposter found me. Her second thought was: Dammit, I didn’t even get to finish my tasks.

However, what poked their head out of the vent was not the colorful astronaut suit of one of the remaining survivors on this ship, but the dark suit of a child. Oh, right, Black had a kid.

Taking a kid on the Skeld wasn’t that uncommon. Sometimes, parents couldn’t afford to leave the kid behind on Earth for a variety of reasons; most often single parents didn’t have the money for a babysitter and had to take their kid to work. Yellow was… unclear on the reasoning for imposters to bring their kids along, but frankly she was unclear on a lot of things regarding their species.

When it came to the voting and ejections with children, the child is only ejected if the parent is found to be an imposter; crewmate kids were usually adopted by someone else, at least for the remainder of their duration on the ship. It wasn’t like there was anything else they could do with the alien kids; no one in their right mind would attempt to care for an alien child like this, especially since the MIRA insisted that all imposter children would grow up bloodthirsty like their parents, no matter what.

It was rare that a parent didn’t take their kid everywhere with them. Black had done it up until the meeting they got voted out. Maybe Black expected they would be voted out and hid their kid before the meeting.

Regardless of the “why” of the matter, it was quickly agreed amongst the crewmates after Black was ejected and the realization that their alien offspring was missing that if the kid was found, to report them immediately and throw them out the airlock into the unforgiving emptiness of space. It was the procedure.

And yet, Yellow hesitated.

“You’re not my papa,” the kid commented quietly, gripping the edges of the floor where it was cut out for the vent, barely peeking their head out.

“No, I’m not,” Yellow responded blankly, staring down at the child, who was suited up just like any other crewmate; if she didn’t know any better, this could be mistaken for a human child.

For a moment, Yellow almost expected the kid to go back and hide in the vents, but though they appeared ansty and nervous, bobbing up and down in place, they remained in the same spot, and eventually spoke again.

“Do you know when my papa will be back?”

“Er…” Yellow froze, unsure of how to handle this. “They won’t be back for a long time, kid,” she settled on saying, unsure if the kid had been taught about death yet.

“Where are they?”

“They’re… not on the ship anymore.”

The kid huffed at this, shoulders sagging and head disappearing into the vents for a moment before popping back up again. They seemed… torn.

Procedure told Yellow to call an emergency meeting. To get rid of the extra imposter before anything went wrong. No one in their right mind would do otherwise, to try treating this child like a human one.

However… they were just a kid. Too small and too young to hurt anyone or even to be recognized by the computers as another imposter.

No one in their right mind would attempt to take care of an alien child like this. Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind, maybe she hit her head that day. It would be crazy to try to care for this kid. Maybe she was a little crazy. A little crazy never hurt anybody, right?

“...You wanna stay for me for awhile?” Yellow offered, sealing her own fate.

Pausing, the kid glanced down into the vent, and then back up at Yellow, considering their options. It didn’t take long though before they climbed out of the vent, slowly toddling over to the other.

“I don’t like it in the vents. Papa told me to stay there but it’s really cold in there,” they murmured, leaning onto Yellow’s leg.

Yellow could only hum in response; sounded like her theory of Black predicting their own fate and hiding their child was correct. Gingerly, she reached down to pat the kid on the top of their helmet.

She paused. She had just been calling them “the kid” or “Black’s kid” in their head, but that wouldn’t do. On the Skeld, crewmates didn’t use their names, they called each other by their colors. It was a rule out of simplicity of not having to memorize so many names, and to decrease affection and bonds between crewmates; with such a high death rate on these missions, getting attached often led to heartbreak. Kids were often exempt from this rule, since they wore the same color as their parents and the double colored names could get confusing. Parents often introduced their kids while in the lobby, but Black hadn’t done that.

“Do you… have a name?”

The unholy screeching that Yellow got in response did not help matters in the slightest. They don’t have an English name then…

“That’s a nice name,” Yellow told them, even if in all honesty she hoped not to hear that name again. “Uh, well… here on the Skeld, a lot of us have nicknames. People call me ‘Yellow’.”

“Like your suit?” the kid giggled, reaching out and poking Yellow in the side.

She couldn’t help but smile, “yeah, like my suit. How about I give you a nickname too? You could be… Junior.” Internally, she scolded herself for such a boring name choice, but she didn’t have time to think of something creative.

Despite her worries about the nickname idea though, the kid seemed to accept this, nodding enthusiastically to the suggestion.

“Okay then, nice to meet you then, Junior.” She considered shaking their hand, but didn’t know if the alien knew what a handshake was and decided against trying. “Would you like to watch me do some tasks? I was about to fix the wires.”

“Yeah!” Junior cheered loudly, already bouncing in place. “What’s the wires?” they then asked, pausing from their own celebration to stare up at Yellow.

“Here, I’ll show you.”

Junior was too short to see the panel for the wires, so they would have to get a boost to see.

“May I pick you up?” Yellow asked, the realization hitting her that there wasn’t a stool in here and she would have to lift up the child so they could see the wires.

“Yeah!”

With acceptance received, Yellow carefully reached down and lifted Junior up. She considered letting them sit on her hip, but she would need to support them with her arm and she needed both hands for this task. So, she moved Junior to sit on her shoulders instead, the kid giggling and wrapping their arms around her helmet and peering down at the panel. She crouched down a bit to let them have a better view of the task.

“See all these wires? They need to be connected to each other, but they aren’t, they’re broken. So, we have to reconnect them,” she explained, pointing at the colored wires. “You have to match each color with each other, you see?”

Junior didn’t respond, but Yellow could only assume they were still watching with interest, so she went on, reaching up for the lowest wire on the left side, which happened to be yellow.

“See, this wire is yellow, like my suit!” she said, “do you see the yellow wire on the right side?” she prompted, even pointing to the right side of the panel in case Junior hadn’t been taught the difference between left and right yet.

Humming to themself, Junior slowly reached out and pointed at the other yellow wire. Yellow found herself smiling again.

“Yay! That’s it; you did it!” she cheered, reaching for the other yellow wire. “Now, we have to carefully connect the two wires, just like this-”

“What are you doing?”

Yellow jumped at the sudden voice, heart immediately leaping to her throat as she spun around to look at the doorway, abandoning the wires task in favor of facing whoever had snuck up on her. In the back of her mind she worried about making Junior dizzy, but they seemed the opposite of bothered.

“Uncle Red!” Junior cheered, reaching with grabby hands towards the crewmate standing in the doorway.

Red gave a small wave from the doorway, and more than ever Yellow wished that she could actually see the expressions on others’ faces through the visors of these helmets. The blankness currently coming from Red was… unnerving.

“You… know the kid?” Yellow asked hesitantly, the awareness of how risky it was to be in Electrical hitting her all over again.

Red paused, and then nodded, “yeah… I, uh, met Black in the lobby and talked to them and their kid a bit before we split off for tasks when we got here,” he responded, “kid gets attached pretty easily, wouldn’t surprise me if they start calling you “Auntie Yellow” soon,” he added with a small chuckle.

That answer didn’t do much to settle Yellow’s nerves, but she nodded back to Red regardless. She supposed it made sense.

“You’re… not reporting the kid?” Red questioned, stepping into the room.

“Er, well- I-”

“I’m not gonna report you for it,” Red assured Yellow mid-stammer, approaching even more. “Actually… I had been looking for them myself. Black may have been a dirty imposter, but… but they’ve got a good kid, they don’t deserve to be shot out of the airlock,” he told her quietly.

Yellow nodded, “yeah, yeah that’s what I thought.”

“Well then… I have an idea.” Yellow could hear the grin on Red’s face as he spoke. “The other crewmates will…” He paused to glance up at Junior, who fortunately didn’t appear to be paying the conversation much mind, instead just tapping their fingers atop Yellow’s helmet in a rhythmic pattern. “...they won’t like the kid, we both know this. How about we stick together. You can do your tasks, and I’ll keep a look out for the other crewmates. We can hide the kid whenever someone shows up.”

“What about the other imposter?” Yellow asked.

“Well, if voting goes well, they’ll prolly get ejected. We can’t rely on them for the kid, or else when the imposter gets ejected, so will the kid.”

“What about your tasks?”

“I’ll do mine after you’re done your’s; we’ll swap places and you can keep watch while I work,” Red answered, “come on, it’ll be safer too. The imposter won’t attack us if we stick together.”

Yellow hesitated. She had never paired up with anyone before for tasks, and there was still the small chance that Red was actually the imposter. Then again, if Red was the imposter, why hadn’t he just killed her? It was a perfect opportunity, and then he would be able to care for the kid himself. There was, of course, the possibility that Red was trying to manipulate Yellow for the long run, but with a sigh she decided to agree; she could always keep an eye on Red herself while she worked.

It was crazy, but it just might work.

“Sure, let’s work together,” Yellow agreed.

“Great,” Red purred, “pleasure working with you. I’ll stand by the door and keep watch; you were doin’ wires, right?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Uncle Red, are you staying with us?” Junior asked, choosing to tune back to the conversation for the part that mattered to his interests.

“Yup kiddo, Yellow ‘n I are going to take care of you for a bit,” Red answered cheerfully.

Junior cheered and clapped at this answer, and Red reached up to pat the kid on top of their helmet.

“Alright, I’ll be right by the door if you need anything,” Red promised, nodding to Yellow before following through with their words and walking back over to lean against the doorway.

Eyeing Red for a couple more moments, Yellow still felt nervous about this whole ordeal… but she also found herself feeling safer. Turning her back to Red, she brought Junior back over to the panel with the wires. She hadn’t finished fixing the yellow ones, so she quickly attached them before reaching for the next wire.

“Alright, so here’s a blue wire. Can you find the other blue wire for me?”

The trio had just been heading out of Electrical together after Yellow finished with the wires when the emergency alarm sounded. Hastily, Yellow hoisted Junior off her shoulders and got him to hide between the boxes in storage before herself and Red hurried over to the cafeteria to see what the meeting had been called for.

Gathered together, including Red and Yellow, there were six of them.

“Purple is dead.”

The other five heads swiveled over to stare at Blue, who was anxiously fidgeting with their gloved hands, head ducked down.

“Where?” Red asked, voice cool and calm despite the situation at hand.

“O-Over by Weapons,” Blue answered, looking up at Red for a split second before staring down at the floor again.

Red let out a low hum, “well, I was with Yellow in Electrical. We were just on our way through Storage when the alarm sounded,” he informed everyone, leaning forward onto the central cafeteria table with one hand.

Yellow nodded to confirm Red’s story. Sure, they hadn’t been together for the entire duration between the previous meeting and this one, but Purple had buddied up with Blue right after that meeting, so that wasn’t exactly a window of opportunity for an imposter.

White seemed to realize that at the same time, “Blue, weren’t you supposed to be with Purple?” he questioned, voice as monotone as always.

Blue flinched, “I was! B-But we split up for tasks that were in rooms right next to each other, I thought- thought that I would hear something, but I d-didn’t…”

“Where were you three?” Yellow asked, sparing Blue some of the social pressure for a moment.

“We were all together by the Reactors; opposite end to Weapons,” Pink answered.

Yellow nodded back slowly; she liked Pink, if Pink hadn’t already grouped herself with Orange and White, Yellow might have had the guts to ask to buddy up with her earlier.

“I think Blue self reported,” Orange accused, crossing his arms. “No one else even went in that direction.”

“Someone could be lying!” Blue defended, voice already cracking with desperation.

“We were all in groups!” Orange snapped back, “I think someone would have noticed if their buddy snuck off,” he growled, “it has to be you.”

Blue looked wildly around at the others, searching for any sign that someone might believe them. Yellow winced sympathetically; everything pointed to Blue, but if they were innocent, this must be such a horrible place to be in.

Red shook his head, “sorry Blue, the evidence is stacked against you. And we can’t afford to skip a vote.”

Red had a point. They had skipped the vote when Lime’s body had been found, and that cost Brown’s life. They were risking accidentally ejecting a crewmate, but if they didn’t vote at all they were giving the imposter more opportunities to kill everyone else.

“Please… it’s not me…” Blue pleaded.

Blue didn’t have any defense other than begging. Everyone voted. The airlock opened, and Blue was gone.

Blue was not an imposter. One imposter remains.

“I wish there was a better way to do this,” Yellow murmured as her and Red made their way back to Storage together.

“Better than voting who to sacrifice to the void?” Red responded, tone joking in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“I mean... yeah? I just always feel so bad having to make that choice,” Yellow sighed.

Red didn’t say anything else. They had returned to storage anyway, so Red advanced to Junior’s hiding spot to bring the kid back out.

“Hey kiddo! We’re back!” Red called.

“Uncle Red! Yellow!” Junior exclaimed, scrambling out from between the boxes into the ready arms of Red, who tossed the kid into the air before holding them securely on his hip.

“Hope that didn’t take too long,” Yellow said, burying her own saddened mood in favor of keeping Junior cheery.

“It took forever!” Junior groaned dramatically, burying their head into Red’s side. “What were you even doing? More tasks?”

“You could say that,” Red chuckled, “we were just meeting with the other crewmates.”

“Is that what Papa was doing before they left the ship?” Junior asked, lifting their head up again to speak clearly. “That same noise went off before they left, and they hid me like you two did.”

Yellow frowned, her heart already aching, “yeah… they went to a meeting just like the one we were just at,” she confirmed.

“But we’re not leaving, okay kiddo?” Red promised.

Junior nodded, “okay. Thank you.”

Red turned to look back over at Yellow, “what tasks do you have left?”

Yellow jolted slightly at being directly addressed, “oh, I’ve actually got to handle the trash chute right in here,” she told him.

“Great,” Red replied, “alright, kiddo, why don’t you help Yellow with the trash chute?” he continued, gently lowering Junior to stand on the floor again.

Nodding eagerly, Junior skipped over to Yellow, who was already standing by the trash chute. She opened her arms for them, and when they hopped into her grip she lifted them up so they could reach the handle for the task.

“Okay, you have to grab the handle, grab it really tightly!” Yellow told them.

Junior obliged, reaching out their small hands and grabbing the handle to the lever.

“Perfect!” Yellow encouraged, “now, you need to tug it all the way down, and hold it there. Don’t let go!”

Following Yellow’s instructions, with a bit of help from Yellow when Junior struggled to hold the handle down, the trash chute was emptied, the crumpled papers, food waste, and other mixed waste seen floating out to space, visible from out the window. Just like Blue, Yellow’s traitorous mind supplied for her, and she had to swallow down a lump in her throat.

“Where to next?” Red asked as Yellow set Junior back down on the floor again.

“Well, I’ve got to do some uploads and the card swipe in Admin, so there next?”

“Sounds good, it’s right next door too.”

Nodding to Red, Yellow led the three of them next door into Admin. The large oak table in the center had a card reader at one end of the table, which Yellow headed to first. Easily entertained by some papers that had fallen onto the carpet under the table, Junior crawled down to play under the table, while Red leaned against the doorway nearest Yellow to watch her work.

Seeing as Junior was distracted and the card swipe wasn’t that interesting of a task anyway, Yellow set right away to her work. Reaching into her pants pocket, she brought out her wallet, which she opened and pulled her I.D. card from. With ease she swiped the card through the reader, and upon seeing it accept her information, she smiled and put everything back away.

“Have you ever been on one of these missions before?” Red asked, a light wonder hidden in his tone.

“Once,” Yellow answered, turning around to face him. “Why? How many missions have you been on?”

“I’ve been on a lot of missions,” Red chuckled, “everyone always complains about the card reader though, and you just did that first try like it was nothing.”

“Oh.” Yellow’s face warmed, and she was thankful that Red couldn’t see her face. “I guess I’m a fast learner. I struggled a bit the first time I had to use the card reader, but now I get how to do it.”

“Am I a fast learner?” Junior blurted out, peeking their head out from under the table.

“Yeah, you’re a fast learner, you got the hang of wires and the trash chute just like that!” Yellow assured them; she would have snapped her fingers for emphasis if she wasn’t wearing these big gloves, or if she could even snap her fingers at all.

Seemingly pleased with this answer, Junior rolled back under the table. Yellow chuckled, finding the smile returning to her face.

“Do you need to do the card swipe? Since we’re here,” she asked, glancing back at Red again.

“Nah, I did it earlier,” he responded.

“Alright, well, uploads takes awhile and I have to keep an eye on it, so we’ll be here for a bit,” Yellow told Red, walking over to the screen on the wall, going right to inputting her information to begin the uploads.

“Fine by me,” Red hummed, strolling across the room to the other end of the table. “In that case, I’ll check the admin computers. Not quite like the security cameras, but we can still keep track of the other three.”

“Oh, good idea!” Yellow commented; using the admin controls, they would have actual evidence if someone was lying about their alibi for the next meeting.

There was silence between them for a few moments, the only noises filling the room coming from the upload’s soft beeping with every other file that successfully went to headquarters.

“So, what do you think of the imposters?” Red asked, not looking at Yellow though glancing under the table to where Junior was before staring back at his own screen.

“I…” Yellow shrugged awkwardly, “I dunno. I don’t even know their species’ name.”

Red glanced up at Yellow curiously. She met his gaze.

“What? Did they tell you that before you went on this mission?” she questioned.

Red chuckled, shaking his head, “no, but it’s been a long time since I had been lectured about the imposters. I was hoping the MIRA had updated that lesson a bit since I had to learn it.”

Yellow scoffed, “I doubt it. All they tell you is that the imposter aliens are usually on every Skeld and Polus trip, and that they’re all bloodthirsty and you have to eject them from the ship, or whatever they do on Polus.”

“But what do you think?”

“I think that there’s gotta be more to it than just that,” Yellow said, leaning against the back wall with crossed arms, facing Red but keeping an eye on the uploads out of the corner of her eyes. “The imposters are obviously more than just bloodthirsty animals. They’re intelligent enough to blend in and deceive us. But I can’t fathom what reason they have to keep risking their own lives just to kill us. If the MIRA is doing something that I’m not aware of, obviously killing dozens of crews isn’t changing anything for the imposters,” she continued, “and if it’s just for the nutrients in our bodies or something, there has to be an easier way to get that food than this.”

“Like what?” Red prompted.

“Like… if we could get some sort of alliance with the imposters, we could offer to donate bodies for them to eat. Like how some people offer their bodies for science experiments,” Yellow suggested, “or, I’m sure humans aren’t the only things that contain the nutrients the imposters need, we could always research other planets to find what they need.” She paused, attention diverted to the screen as the uploads finished. “Is… Is that weird?” she asked Red as she finished the final manual steps to this task.

“Is what weird?” Red questioned, not bothering to hide the amusement in his tone. “I think it’s very thoughtful to consider the other perspective here. Have you thought about that a lot?”

Yellow chuckled awkwardly, “er, yeah, I have. I tend to overthink a lot, so the lack of information surrounding the imposters got me curious.”

“Honestly? I think more crewmates should think about it. Then maybe we wouldn’t be in these sorts of messes to begin with.”

At Red’s words, Yellow couldn’t help but glance to Junior again, who was still under the table, and appeared to have found a pen to scribble on the papers with.

She hadn’t realized that she had zoned out until she felt Red’s hand make contact with her shoulder, a friendly slap.

“How many tasks do you have left?” Red asked her, and with them standing so close, Yellow could almost see his face through the visor, smiling.

“Just a couple. My last wires task is up at Navigation, so let’s go there next,” she answered, stepping towards the door, putting some space between the both of them.

“Glad to hear it,” Red hummed, “alright kiddo, you done drawing? We’re heading up to Navigation,” he told Junior, who perked up as they were addressed.

“Yup! I’m ready!”

Scrambling out from under the table, Junior left behind most of the papers on the floor, but carried one out with them, which they immediately thrust in front of Red to show him. Yellow couldn’t help but glance over, but she wasn’t at a good angle to see what was on the paper. Red took the paper from Junior, looking it over before crouching down and passing it back to Junior.

“Did you draw this?” Red asked, in a voice so soft and rare for him.

Junior nodded enthusiastically, “yeah! Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Red answered, “I think you should show it to Yellow.”

Following Red’s suggestion, Junior sprinted over to Yellow, shoving the page into her hands next. Accepting the paper, carefully smoothing the crinkles out as she looked it over, Yellow saw that the drawing was of four people, three tall and one small. The way the people were drawn reminded Yellow of the shape of jellybeans, jellybean people with legs. It was a drawing of them; Red, Yellow, Junior, and Black together. Junior must have found a black pen and a red pen, because they had managed to scribble in those colors for themself, Black, and Red.

“I couldn’t find a yellow pen, but I drew us!” Junior said, standing on their tiptoes to peek over the page and poke their finger at the uncolored drawing of Yellow.

“I could still tell it was me, don’t worry,” Yellow assured them, passing the paper back to them. “This looks great. We’ve got a little artist in our midst,” she said, patting Junior on the head, who giggled at the affection.

“We could quit space travel and sell beautiful art for a living,” Red joked, walking up to the other two. “Well, we’re off to Navigation then!”

Yellow had been in the middle of showing Junior how to fix the wires again when her mind clued into the fact that there was one less presence in the room.

“Red?” she called out tentatively.

No response.

Swallowing her nerves, Yellow silently prayed that the imposter wouldn’t choose now to strike as she continued working on the wires; she was almost done and if she quit now she would have to start over. With shaking hands, she managed to complete her task, and carefully walked towards the doorway, keeping Junior safely behind her.

“Red?” she called out again.

“Yeah?”

Yellow flinched as Red’s voice came from her other side, and she turned to see Red right in the hallway beside the doorway.

“Where were you?” Yellow questioned, voice coming out with more bite than intended.

Red raised both their hands in front of him slightly, “just down the hall, I thought I heard someone so I was just going to check. Sorry if I worried you.”

“What if you got attacked? You should have said something!” Yellow hissed.

“I didn’t want to distract you, I’m sorry,” Red replied, “besides, I’ve been on a lot of missions, I knew what I was doing. If I saw anyone, I was going to go straight back to you. No one would have attacked us both at the same time,” he added.

Yellow sighed, letting a lot of their tension along with their breath, “okay, sorry for snapping at you-”

The alarms sounded.

“Pink is dead,” Orange snarled, slamming his hands on the table.

Yellow’s heart sank, “where was the body?”

“What’s left of it, you mean,” Orange growled, “there was only half of Pink’s body when White and I found her in the Lower Engine room,” he answered, “I know it isn’t me or White, so the imposter has to be one of you two!”

“Why did Pink split off from you two?” Red asked, disregarding Orange’s accusation.

“We all split up for a few minutes to do our lask tasks, but we were all on the west-north side; I don’t know why Pink wandered off without telling us,” White muttered.

Red took on a thoughtful pose, “why did you all split up?”

Orange slammed his hands on the table again, “you’re just stalling for time! It’s one of you two!”

“Well, we were working in Admin and Navigation, and we always stuck together, so I don’t know what to tell you,” Red responded, shrugging.

“The imposters vent,” Orange hissed, “there was even blood leading into the vent, wherever you two claim to be is bullshit,” he continued, “I think Yellow is pretty suspicious,” he went on, finally leaving a solid accusation.

Yellow froze, her blood seeming to turn to ice. Is this what Blue felt like when Orange accused them? she wondered. Red, on the other hand, did not panic. Instead the room almost felt darker as he slowly mimicked the position that Orange was in, glaring at the crewmate from across the table.

“Yellow is the most trustworthy person on the entire fucking ship,” Red growled, “she would never hurt a fly.”

“It has to be one of you two,” Orange repeated, “if it’s not her, it’s you. I know it isn’t White, and I’m no damned imposter,” he said cooly, “she’s hiding something, I know it. Yellow is suspicious.”

Red continued maintaining his stare on Orange, not saying anything. Slowly, he rose back to a standing position, crossing his arms behind his back.

“You’re being awfully aggressive, Orange,” Red commented, “the last time you led a vote, Blue died, and they weren’t an imposter. And yet you seem to be in an awful hurry to vote up the next person. I think you’re the imposter, and you’re trying to save yourself the energy by voting the crew off instead of killing them yourself.”

Orange recoiled, “you bastard! I’m not the imposter!”

“What’s your defense then? You split up from your friends, and Pink turns up dead. Yellow and I always stuck together; there’s only one imposter, so if one of us was the imposter, the crewmate would have noticed if the other wandered off and would have mentioned it to vote the actual imposter off.”

Horror stabbed through Yellow, it felt like the entire cafeteria was tilting around her. She struggled to breathe. Red was the imposter. He had killed Pink when Yellow was working on wires in Navigation, and was trusting Yellow to keep her mouth shut about it.

The scariest part? He was right. If she accused Red, him or Orange could turn it into a story about Yellow trying to save face and eject her. And then what? Would they eject Junior too? Would Red slaughter everyone? She had to keep quiet about Red being the imposter, for now at least.

Distantly, Yellow could hear Orange still yelling at Red, but she wasn’t picking up the words anymore. The room looked foggy past her visor.

“-et’s not waste anymore time, we need to vote,” Red’s voice cut through Yellow’s mind, and instinctively she glanced over at him.

Red and Orange voted right away. White and Yellow both hesitated before voting.

One vote for Yellow. Three votes for Orange.

Orange whirled around to stare at White, “W-White! Why did you vote for me? You know I’m not the imposter!” he screamed.

White stared down at his hands, “I don’t know,” he responded quietly, “Blue and Pink were my friends,” he said, even quieter, barely audible at all.

“You’re going to die here now,” Orange hissed, “you’ve left yourself with the imposter and their little buddy.”

White looked back at Orange. They stared at each other, silent. Whether White regretted his choice or not, it couldn’t be seen through the visors on the helmet. Either way, the voting was done, and no one could take back their choices.

Orange was not an imposter. One imposter remains.

The trio stared out the large windows, watching Orange’s body float away through the empty void of space.

“I’m going back to Navigation,” Yellow announced before anyone else could think to say anything, staggering out of the cafeteria.

Distantly, she was aware of footsteps behind her. She didn’t know if it was a good thing or not anymore. Her mind was still spinning from what just happened, and at this point she couldn’t care less who was following her. Maybe it was both Red and White.

Feeling dead on her feet, Yellow walked back into Navigation. Hearing her enter, Junior peeked out from their hiding place, before running out to hug her legs.

“How was the meeting?” they asked, still full of energy. “I heard yelling,” they added in a hushed tone.

“Yeah, it…” Yellow trailed off, finding it a challenge to get her mouth to form words.

“Where’s Uncle Red?” Junior asked, not caring that Yellow hadn’t properly answered their previous questions.

“He’s… in the cafeteria,” Yellow managed to tell them, “look, we should-”

“Yellow?”

Yellow turned to face White, instinctively shielding Junior behind her. God, everything here may have gone to shit, but she could at least protect this kid.

“Orange was right,” White said, his own voice sounding far away through his shock. “You are the impo-”

White never got to finish his sentence before he was stabbed in the back of the head. His corpse slumped to the ground as the object of the stabbing retracted itself from White’s head. Sharp just like a spear, Red’s tongue retracted into their belly mouth, which while previously invisible, was now open through the suit with lines of bladed teeth.

“Uncle Red!” Junior left Yellow’s side to run over to the other imposter, hopping over White’s body like it wasn’t there.

Yellow’s legs felt like jello. She stumbled over, leaning on the nearest wall as she tried to calm her breathing, the voices around her sounding like static.

Red grabbed Yellow’s shoulder. She jumped.

“Is Yellow okay?” Junior asked softly, Yellow barely hearing it through her own stupor.

“She’s just tired from all the tasks, okay? Humans get tired pretty easy,” Red reassured Junior, looking at the child to address them before meeting Yellow’s gaze again. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? We’re all safe here now,” he whispered to her.

Yellow didn’t know what to say, how to act. Despite everything, part of her still trusted Red, and her stomach seemed to twist more at this. Red sighed.

“Here, how about we all go back to the cafeteria, okay? I can get you something to eat, Junior,” Red said.

Yellow could tell that Junior cheered in approval, but any other dialogue faded back into static for her.

Yellow sat at one of the cafeteria tables, staring down a box of apple juice. She didn’t know how long it had been, but she had calmed down enough for her sense to refocus, even if her heart was still pounding in her chest.

Blinking, she looked over to where Red and Junior were. Both had taken their helmets off, and at a glance, both could almost look human. Red had tanned skin and ginger hair, but his eyes were dark voids with pinpricks of light to serve as pupils, his ears were pointed and his teeth too sharp. There was something off about how his skin pulled over his bones, leaving his face feeling uncanny in a way Yellow couldn’t place. And, of course, there was still that blasted belly mouth. Junior had almost sickly pale skin and dark, curly hair. They shared the same dark eyes and sharp teeth as Red, but their hair was long enough to cover their ears, so Yellow couldn’t tell if they had the same pointed ears too.

Red had prepped them each bowls of… what Yellow could only assume was flesh from one of the crewmates. All the other corpses had been ejected, either from being voted off or just because the procedure was to eject corpses into space, so either Pink or White. Red and Junior were eating either Pink or White. Or both. Yellow didn’t know what to think anymore.

“Where did you hide the other half of Pink’s body?”

That was not the question Yellow wanted to ask, and she had to swallow back another lump in her throat. Red looked over at her, evidently not expecting her to speak up, and then he laughed.

“In the vents! I was saving some for Junior; I had expected the rest of Pink to get ejected like the other dead crewmates, but, well, no one ever got that chance,” Red answered, far too jovial for such a dark answer.

Slowly, Yellow sat up, silently staring at Red, wondering what she should ask him next. Before she could decide though, Red laughed again, and pointed to the juice box.

“You’re not allergic or anything, right? I thought it might help, you should drink that first,” he told her, “I can find you something to eat too. I’m sure there are rations on this ship that you would be happier eating,” he added.

Not giving Red a response, Yellow stared back down at the juice box. He was right, again, the sugar in the juice would probably do her some good. It didn’t look tampered with either, so Yellow decided to bury all her swarming thoughts for now and get something healthy into her system. Slowly, she took off her own helmet and set it down on the bench beside where she was sitting. She ran her fingers through her hair with a long sigh, reaching for the juice with her other hand and stabbing the straw through the top so she could drink it.

As she drank, Red wandered over and sat across from her, the bowls he and Junior had been eating from now empty. Junior sat beside Red, their legs too short to touch the ground from where they were sitting, so they swung their legs back and forth energetically.

“Why spare me?” Yellow finally asked the obvious once she was done drinking all the juice from the small box.

“Because you’re my friend,” Red answered, “I hope so, at least.” His smile was filled with sharp teeth. “You decided to spare Junior; any other crewmate wouldn’t have. I’ll admit when I made that deal I was just biding some time, but I grew to like you. You’re efficient in your work and incredibly thoughtful; you were willing to consider the perspective of us imposters. You’re good at caring for Junior, at caring in general,” he continued, “you’re smart, I know you knew I was the imposter, at least by that last meeting. And yet, you voted for Orange.” His grin grew. “Why spare me?”

Yellow paused. Whatever reasoning she had in the moment of voting Orange felt distant now. Her finger traced circles on top of the cafeteria table.

“I wanted to protect Junior,” she settled on, speaking quietly.

Red’s smile softened, “Black was a good friend of mine. We knew each other for longer than what I told you. I loved them. They told me that if anything happened to them, that they wanted me to take care of Junior.” He let out a sigh, shoulders sagging slightly. “I miss them. I just want Junior to be happy. And you make them happy; you make me happy too. I’ve never been able to just… talk with a human before.”

“Why not?” Yellow blurted out, quickly going to rephrase her question. “Why do imposters come out here to kill humans? Have you tried working something out with humans before?”

“You were close in some of your theories in a few ways,” Red said, folding his arms in front of him on the table. “On the planet we come from, there aren’t many resources. It’s especially challenging to get food. Our Queen orders us to go on these missions, to hide among crews and kill them all. I don’t know why she wants us to do it, but it’s good food, so we do,” he explained, “but, you got me thinking. What if there is another way? I’m tired of this. I’m tired of Skeld, tired of the voting, tired of the venting and sneaking around and all of this.”

Yellow stared at Red incredulously. He didn’t say anything for a few moments; probably to build suspense, for the drama of it all. She narrowed her eyes at him, silently pressuring him to go on. Red grinned back at her, leaning across the table.

“I have an idea. How about we stick together,” he began, “let’s get out of this dump, the three of us. We’ll get our own ship and travel around space until we find our own place where we can all be happy.”

No one in their right mind would take this offer, to travel with two alien imposters like this. Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind, maybe she hit her head that day. It would be crazy to go with them. Maybe she was a little crazy. A little crazy never hurt anybody, right?

Yellow laughed, in spite of herself.

“Sure, let’s work together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Edit [Oct. 16, 2020]: This fic has gotten fanart!! Full credit for to art to the lovely Klovar, if you have a tumblr make sure to show their art some support because it's really neat! Thanks again!!  
> https://ao3klovar.tumblr.com/post/632011763378995200/a-little-crazy-never-hurt-anybody-fanart


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